Break it to me gently
Break it to me gently
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 13:48:54 -0500
Two brothers, John and Richard lived in the same town. John with his
12 year old cat, Richard with their 88 year old Mother. John's whole
life was his cat. He never went anywhere without her. One day he was
faced with a terrible decision. He had to go to England on business
for his company and he could not take the cat into England with having
to quarantine her for 14 days. He wouldn't do that so he was faced
with either losing his job or leaving his cat.
Finally he decided to trust his brother with the cat for the week he
would be gone. He gave Richard detailed instructions, schedules,
food, etc. Finally he flew to London and called Richard every few
hours to make sure Gracie the cat was ok. 4 days of this went by
and John was really getting to be a pain in the neck.
On the fifth day when he called John asked Richard how Gracile was
and Richard told him. "Gracile is dead"!! Well as you can imagine,
John nearly had a heart attack.
When he recovered he said to Richard, "that was the most cruel
thing I ever heard. You know how much I loved that cat, why
couldn't you have broken it to me gently. You know like when
I called said something like, well she's OK but she is up on
the roof. And then when I called the next time, tell me oh
oh, bad news, she fell off the roof and she's at the vets. And
then the next time break the news that she passed away. At
least I would have been a little prepared for the bad news.
"Yes, you are right John. I am sorry for being so heartless."
John accepted Richards apology for being so uncaring, and
then said, "oh, by the way, how's Mother?"
Richard then said, "well, John, she's OK, but she's on the roof!!"
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